


Dichotomy

by philote_auctor



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-06 22:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1875282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philote_auctor/pseuds/philote_auctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Bucky recovers more of himself, he tries to figure out how he and the Winter Soldier coexist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dichotomy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [russian_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/russian_blue/gifts).



oOo

 

_There is a science to assassination._

_Leaving anything to luck is foolhardy. The proper soldier knows all the possible variables going in and has a plan to account for those which could not be predicted._

_The Soldier is expecting the woman’s presence; expecting her to interfere. He does not blink when she blocks his shot. He simply adjusts his trajectory by a mere fraction._

_The bullet flies true, finding its mark. The target falls, dead before he hits the ground._

_The woman falls as well, red hair and scarlet blood flying in tandem._

_The Soldier packs up his weapon and turns away._

His eyes pop open.

 

Habit makes him hold completely still, giving no other sign of wakefulness as he catalogues his surroundings. It takes him only a moment to place the fancy curtains filtering the first hints of dawn.

 

Bucky lets his eyes slip closed again briefly before he sighs. Then he pushes himself upright and shoves back the sheet, swinging his legs over the side of the plush king-sized bed. He still finds the luxury of this place foreign and excessive. He’s used to bare-bones living, to whatever patch of space was available on the run and to memories filled with the simple frugalness of his youth and the minimal existence of a soldier. This is a whole different world.

 

He kind of fails to see how crashing in the guest room of a billionaire’s mansion qualifies as laying low. But no one has shown up demanding that Stark turn over the fugitive assassin he’s harboring, so Bucky can’t really complain. It has not escaped his attention that Steve’s suggested ‘shelter for a few days’ has turned into months; has, in fact, started to have a hint of permanence to it. He’s not entirely sure how he feels about that yet.

 

Soft carpet cushions his bare feet as he makes his way into the bathroom. The lights come on automatically. He braces himself against the counter and uses his right hand to splash water over his face and reach for the towel to dry off. Only then does he allow his eyes to drift up, to meet themselves in the mirror.

 

He studies the man looking back at him. Strands of his long hair have stuck to his face with the water and he reaches to shove them back. Steve has, more than once and not-so-subtly, encouraged him to cut it. He has resisted. His eyes stray to the metal that is his left arm, to the so-called fingers capable of crushing but not caressing. He wonders if ‘man’ is even the correct term for him anymore.

 

The dream should bother him—all the more so because it is a memory rather than a fantasy of his subconscious. He has no doubt that this really occurred, that he recalls it perfectly, right down to the direction of the blood spatter.

 

The doctor they’d brought in—the one Bucky suspects either owed a personal favor or was paid an absurd amount by Tony Stark—had concluded that there was no physical brain damage that would prevent him from recovering his memories now that the ‘wiping’ sessions have ceased. Bucky doesn’t even pretend to understand all the test results or what was done to him in the first place. He simply deals with the practical side of living with it.

 

The memories are coming back, slowly and unpredictably. When he is able to sleep they come as dreams, clear as day. But some don’t wait to present themselves in such a controlled environment. The slightest and often unexpected things can touch off a flashback, a waking nightmare. He much prefers the dreams.

 

He remembers that he used to have nightmares during the war, macabre scenes of blood and death that would leave him physically ill when he woke in cold sweats. He should be disturbed by the blood now. He should be overwhelmed by what he did, by a murder committed by his own hands.

 

He does feel a certain amount of remorse, an ache at the back of his mind that he can neither ignore nor seem to fully feel. But he is not repulsed by the violence. He doesn’t feel as badly as he thinks he should.

 

He is most disturbed by the fact that he’s not more disturbed. He smirks a little at the irony, hair falling back into his face as he shakes his head and turns away from the mirror. He’ll have to remember that line for Sam, let him analyze that for a while.

 

After the first doctor there had been a couple of shrinks, a man and then a woman both with Ivy League credentials and ‘top of their fields’—or so Stark had complained as they both walked out wholly unsuccessful. Bucky refused to talk to them.

 

Sam is the only one Steve trusts. He might never have explicitly said so, but Bucky could tell. So Bucky talks only to Sam. And, despite Sam’s protests that he didn’t think he was quite qualified for this, he has become the therapist to the Winter Soldier.

 

Truthfully Bucky already knows what Sam will say about the dream and his lack of emotions—it is not a new topic. _“The memories come prepackaged with emotions. Whatever you were feeling at the time, that’s what you get now,”_ he has said.

 

Which essentially translates to an utter lack of emotion as he committed murder. Brilliant.

 

Bucky tries not to dwell on it as he pulls on a t-shirt. He ponders the memory itself instead, the players in it. He doesn’t know who the man was, has no idea why he was assigned to kill him. The woman is another matter. He expects she is the reason that particular memory has presented itself now. The very same redhead turned up here not twelve hours ago.

 

He knows without doubt that the man, the target, is dead. But clearly it was not a kill shot on the woman. Again he thinks there should be emotion here—definitive relief, perhaps. Mostly he just finds it curious. He knows she is one of Steve’s friends, wonders if she’s been granted a guest room as well.

 

He exits his room into the hallway and turns in the direction of the kitchen. He moves quietly, conscious of Steve’s room right next to his. He knows the purpose of that placement was as much for Steve to keep an eye on him as anything, but he can surely make it to breakfast without any incidents. The kid needs his rest.

 

Bucky pauses at that thought, a small grin touching his lips. It was a thought he’d had hundreds of times back when Steve was a sickly kid; back when Bucky was the big brother in the relationship. Of course, if he’s honest, the protectiveness was never one-sided. They’d looked out for and needed each other.

 

Now? Not so much. Steve is the one doing all of the caretaking. Bucky doesn’t feel like he has much to contribute beyond the smiles he earns when he brings up an old memory of their friendship. Of course, those moments are worth their weight in gold to him. Steve is really all he has.

 

He holds onto something he overheard the first night after he let Steve and Sam catch up to him, something Sam had said to a fretting Steve.   _“You’re his link to humanity. He’ll need you to find his way back to who he was, so just…be you. Be his friend.”_

Bucky has no doubts about Steve. Steve could never be anything less than who he is, could never give any less of himself. The problem is Bucky.

 

He doesn’t think he’s that person anymore. He’s not sure if the friend Steve loved so well can ever be fully recovered. But, oh God, how he wants that.

 

That is another thought that gives him pause and he stops moving, hovering on the threshold of the kitchen. He hasn’t given much thought to God in a very long time.

 

He grew up in church; went every Sunday with his very faithful mother. He doesn’t doubt the existence of the deity. What he realizes, in this instant, is that he doubts God’s forgiveness. He has done things and become something that he fears is far past redemption.

 

He wants it, though. Now that it has become a conscious thought, he realizes that he desires it with a nearly physical ache.

 

A sudden sound behind him makes him tense and grasp the door frame, prepared to spin around. A second later he identifies the person approaching and checks his reaction just shy of violence. It would not do to kill his host.

 

“Morning, Tin Man. Are you gonna hold up the doorframe all day? In most cases I wouldn’t complain, a little extra metal support never hurt a structure, but since you are currently between me and the coffee pot I’m afraid I will have to ask you to shove over.”

 

Bucky turns to give him a pointedly blank stare.

 

Tony Stark takes in the look with a raised eyebrow. “Politely, of course. I meant to say please. _Please_ shove over.”

 

Bucky complies with a grunt. “Are you telling me you haven’t had caffeine yet today?” he asks doubtfully.

 

Stark scoffs as he makes a beeline for the coffee pot. “Bite your tongue. This is cup three. It’s important to keep up the schedule; my body expects it. It gets very angry if it doesn’t get regular doses. It might rebel.”

 

“Right,” Bucky says doubtfully.

 

Steve had warned him before they sought refuge here that he should not expect this Stark to be like the one he’d known so many years ago. At that point Bucky’s memories of Howard were so sketchy that he formed his opinions of Tony all on his own merit. But the more he remembered, the more he began to realize that he saw a lot more resemblance between father and son than Steve or Tony seemed willing to admit.

 

Bucky was never as close to Howard as Steve was and perhaps did not know him as well. He respected the man’s genius, appreciated his occasional humor and the genuine friendship he seemed to hold for Steve. But he also thought him arrogant and sometimes flippant and too focused on his work to the exclusion of other people’s best interests.

 

Bucky considers the Stark before him now as the man fills his mug to the brim. Tony willfully exudes arrogance and is rarely serious. In many ways he is an extreme version of his father, including his genius. But Bucky (the Soldier) is trained to see through people, to predict their behavior and see their weaknesses. Instinct tells him Tony Stark is a master of masks; that he actually cares and feels deeply though he would never admit it. Still, all the bluntness and bluster makes him a difficult person to like.

 

Bucky turns his attention from where Stark is practically inhaling his coffee to focus on the refrigerator. He’s perpetually hungry. Something about an enhanced metabolism; something he and Steve share in common now. Stark keeps griping that they’ll eat him out of house and home, but then in the next breath he’s ordering more food for them.

 

He’s just opened the door when something slips up beside him. He goes tense again; he hadn’t heard her coming. The redhead twists between him and the door and claims the milk carton, offering him a smile as she retreats to the cook island.

 

“Make yourself at home,” Tony tells her sarcastically, though he allows her to nudge him aside to grab a bowl. “Why is it that you know my kitchen better than I do?”

 

“Good morning to you too, Stark.” She tilts her head in Bucky’s direction. “A polite host would introduce his guests.”

 

“Well no one ever accused me of politeness. And I was under the impression you two had already met.”

 

“We were never formally introduced.” She offers Bucky a pleasant enough smile. “I’m Natasha.”

 

He intends to introduce himself in return, to offer his hand. But his mind chooses this moment to interject, _‘Black Widow.’_ He is thrown by that, wonders what it means, and ends up sort of grunting at her instead.

 

Stark looks at him a little funny, but Natasha just nods in greeting and moves on.

 

Bucky turns back to the refrigerator for refuge as much as for food. He listens to them volley back and forth as he considers his breakfast options; chooses an apple to start with. He cannot help but smirk a few times; he thinks he likes this woman who holds her own and often seems to come out on top in this battle of wits.

 

“That is because you are utterly ignorant of acceptable behavior in the situation,” she comes back to some comment of his.

 

It’s not until Stark says, “Since you know I didn’t get a word of that I’m going to assume you were complimenting my magnanimous hospitality,” that Bucky realizes she hadn’t been speaking English.

 

Russian, he identifies. He didn’t realize he knew Russian. He knew about the German and the Spanish, things he’d picked up or been taught somewhere along the line; Russian just hadn’t come up yet. Apparently he knows more languages than he realizes.

 

It wasn’t always like that. He remembers being surrounded by other languages during the war, trying to latch onto enough German to understand what was being yelled in the opposing camp and then spoken amongst his captors. He remembers what it was like to not understand, to catch only one word in dozens. He remembers the fear that went along with that, helpless and lost. His heart speeds up a bit.

 

One moment he is looking at the apple clutched in his metal fingers. The next his gaze drifts up and the room is suddenly an open area. He’s surrounded by strangers, men in medical garb. They are speaking a language he only grasps a few words in.

 

(But he does understand, and he knows that the little man with the glasses is Zola, and for a brief second he has a chance of latching onto the disconnect and stopping this before it gets bad. But…)

 

Then there’s a small crash behind him, the clattering sound of metal hitting the floor. He swings toward it and sees medical instruments; a scalpel rolling across the floor, apparently dropped by the masked technician who’s now staring at him like he’s an animal about to get loose.

 

The comparison is not so far off the mark. He feels panic clawing at his insides. All he can do is obey the instinct. He lashes out.

 

Something catches his left side and he flings it away as he leaps from the table, reminded of the power in the arm. It still feels alien, but he is learning to use it. Last time he woke he’d grabbed one of his captors, crushed his throat before he could even let out a whimper.

 

That is why there are always armed guards nearby now. There is no escape, he knows. What is available to him is destruction. He catches shelves and knocks them to the ground, spilling and breaking the contents. He grabs the bedside stool and tosses it towards his captors.

 

“Bucky!”

 

No one calls him Bucky, not anymore. Not here. He pauses. The voice registers before the face does. Steve? Has Steve come to rescue him?

 

That’s what brings him out; because his mind knows better. Steve wasn’t there then. But he is now.

 

He comes back to reality with a jerk, the room that was his prison abruptly replaced by Tony Stark’s kitchen.

 

 It looks a bit different than when he last saw it a few minutes ago. Utensils litter the floor along with shattered pieces of glass and ceramic. The refrigerator door hangs at an awkward angle; a broken barstool lies despondently near the windows.

 

Steve is crouched before him, hovering but very carefully not touching. Bucky peers up at him through a curtain of hair. Then he closes his eyes tightly for a long moment.

 

This, he knows, is why he hasn’t given into the haircut. It allows him some measure of a hiding place.

 

Finally, when he feels he’s regained some modicum of control, he opens his eyes and reluctantly pushes the hair behind his ears.

 

Steve shifts slightly at the motion; gazes long and hard into Bucky’s eyes. “Bucky?”

 

Bucky takes a few deep breaths and meets his gaze, finally giving him a slight nod. Relief spreads across Steve’s features as he carefully reaches out, touching his shoulder lightly, drawing him close.

 

The first time Steve interrupted a flashback, he wound up with a metal fist clamped around his neck. If he’d been anyone but Captain America, his throat would have been crushed. He couldn’t talk properly for a week even with his super soldier healing. Needless to say, he’d learned that grabbing the Winter Solder was a bad idea.

 

Grabbing Bucky, though, is a different matter. Bucky likes human contact, always has. His mother used to say he thrived on affection.

 

He focuses on that as he presses himself closer to Steve, twists his face into his friend’s neck and inhales a scent that through super solder serum and decades of frozen sleep has somehow remained the same. It helps ground him; helps him grab hold of as much of ‘Bucky’ as he can in an effort to leave the Soldier behind.

 

_“I don’t think it’s a good idea to think of yourself as two separate people,”_ Sam has said. _“You’re not a split personality; the Winter Soldier isn’t something you can just set aside and partition off from Bucky Barnes. All the memories, the good and the bad, are all a part of you. We can’t work with it, can’t teach you how to live with it, until you accept that.”_

That’s easier said than done. He wants the Winter Soldier to be a separate personality, someone he can fight. Someone he can defeat and leave behind so he can be fully Bucky again.

 

He hangs onto Steve with his right hand, his flesh-and-bone fingers curling around his friend’s arm. He is all too conscious of his other arm, purposefully letting it hang like dead weight. He’s seized by a perverse desire to just chop the thing off at the shoulder. He wouldn’t put it past Stark to have something right in this kitchen capable of doing so; if not there is certainly something a couple of floors down in his labs. He knows that’s ridiculous, knows it is too integrated into him and would truly be like chopping off a limb.

 

He still considers it. A shudder runs through him.

 

Steve responds by shifting his grip, gentling the hold and shifting a hand to rub between his shoulder blades. He’s murmuring something soft, comforting.

 

Bucky had all but forgotten what it was like to be touched gently, affectionately. It makes his eyes burn.

 

Stark is still here, in the background, rambling on about something or another as he rummages around in a cabinet and comes up with a coffee cup exactly like the one now shattered in pieces beside the island. Bucky watches idly as a little robot zips into the room, makes a high-pitched clicking noise and starts cleaning up the mess.

 

Eventually, Stark’s words begin to register. “…a liability in the field is one thing. A liability in the kitchen? That’s new. Though I can’t really blame you for taking the offensive; there are current inhabitants of this kitchen that could kill you.”

 

Bucky never thought he’s be grateful for Stark’s rambling, but he huffs a laugh now, easing back from Steve’s shoulder. “You really think you could take me, Stark?”

 

“What am I, suicidal? Of course not. Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was actually referring to the toaster.”

 

Bucky follows his gesture to the toaster on the counter, the only thing still standing amongst the carnage of appliances and dinnerware. It looks like a normal toaster. He looks back to where Stark is watching him with a perfectly straight face. He makes a mental note to swear off toast for the foreseeable future.

 

“Tony,” Steve says with a long-suffering sigh.

 

“Spangles,” Stark returns nonchalantly, sipping his coffee as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

 

That still grates at Bucky a bit. The genius has a few choice nicknames for him as well, but Bucky doesn’t so much care what anyone calls him. Steve, though…well, it’s always raised his hackles when anyone made fun of Steve. That’s one behavior that far predates the Winter Soldier.

 

Steve doesn’t seem to mind, though. Apparently it is Stark’s version of affection. Bucky is still trying to puzzle out the friendship between Steve and Tony. Sometimes it seems almost adversarial.

 

But then there are times like now. Stark could and probably should have left the room when this episode started, for his own safety. But he stands his ground for no reason Bucky can see other than to offer support to Steve. Granted, it’s his own brand of support.  It’s a very different sort of protectiveness, but Bucky recognizes the kindred intent. It has earned him Bucky’s respect.

 

As he regains his equilibrium, Bucky studies the man more closely. “Okay, Stark?” he asks roughly, though he doesn’t see any visual injuries.

 

“No permanent damage. I may require a masseuse later. And no, that was not a come on, Crusher. You’d squeeze out more than my tension.”

 

Bucky simply shakes his head, refocusing on Steve. “You?” he asks softly.

 

Steve shakes his head. “I missed the worst.”

 

“You stopped the worst,” Buck counters. He glances once more around the kitchen. “Natasha?”

 

 “She was afraid she set it off; thought it was best if she disappeared for the moment.” Even though he doesn’t voice it, Bucky can hear the question in Steve’s tone.

 

 “Don’t worry, she has that effect on a lot of people,” Tony interjects.

 

“It wasn’t her. Well, not directly. It was the language,” Bucky admits, his voice trailing off. After a moment he shakes his head, physically trying to clear it. “Early days,” he states softly, simply.

 

Steve nods, a painful sort of empathy in his eyes. “You’re safe now.”

 

“I know.” And some part of him does. Now if only he could convince all the other parts to come together into one coherent whole.

 

He remembers being whole. He also remembers coming apart.

 

Someday, he hopes, he’ll look back on now and remember being put back together again.

 

oOo

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the Marvel Universe do not belong to me. I make no money from this story.


End file.
